Almost Fatally Flawed
by CodependentCollision
Summary: There is an unfortunate side effect of loving someone as much as Beca loves Chloe, and it is that you lay yourself entirely bare.


**A/N: **Friend of mine apparently burnt herself out on Bechloe fluff and asked for some dysfunctional relationship fic. This is my attempt at that. Feel free to let me know what you think :].

* * *

There is an unfortunate side effect of loving someone as much as Beca loves Chloe, and it is that you lay yourself entirely bare. And that makes you vulnerable. Chloe knows all the good parts of Beca, where to drag her thumb across her hips to make her shiver and what she'll order at restaurants every time and how her eyes squint when she laughs. And Beca knows how much Chloe wants to succeed, and how Chloe smiles a little when she wakes up in the middle of the night, eyes still closed, and how Chloe really does just want to be loved more than anything.

But that is not all they know. Chloe knows exactly where to press to hit Beca's pressure points and how hard to do it, how to touch on her unspoken fears and bruises and everything else raw. Beca knows how to carefully arrange her words to inflict the most damage, guiding them like missiles.

So when Chloe gets upset over a comment from Aubrey and Beca says casually that "maybe this wouldn't keep happening if you'd just stick up for yourself" –

or when Chloe takes a pointed second before saying "nothing" when Beca asks her what she's angry about –

or when Beca refuses to say anything at all when asked the same question –

or when Chloe asks, just because she's wondering, not that she's trying to say anything, just wondering if Beca has taken her pills today –

it's because they know exactly how bad it will hurt the other one, and that they can get away with it because of how loudly and painfully they love each other.

* * *

And it's not that they've always fought, although maybe that would almost have been better. It's just that the burn under Beca's skin started to turn to an itch, slowly, unnoticeable, until she starts to wonder exactly how hard she can push, what exactly she has to do to trip the wire.

It's a horrible, sickening itch, the kind that Beca has never been able to resist.

* * *

Beca had woken up that morning and Chloe was not in the apartment, not anywhere, and her car was gone. She had been there when Beca had gone to bed the night before, she's positive, still sitting at the low dining room table, focused on her laptop.

"I'm going to sleep now," she'd told Chloe, letting it be an invitation and a closed door all at once.

"Mm," was what Chloe had said to that, just mm, and she hadn't even looked up.

But she was still gone an hour after Beca woke up, and another hour after that, and when Beca texts her at lunch to say "where did you go?" she doesn't even got an "mm," just a text with no words, just one ellipsis: dot dot dot.

_Are you going to elaborate?_ she asked.

_I flew to Chicago this morning. The paper sent me to lead an interview. Remember?_

At which point Beca had decides this was not something she wants to deal with in text messages, and she called Chloe, knowing she would pick up, that she was always unable to resist answering when there were teeth to be bared.

"This isn't – this isn't how you treat someone," Beca says. And before she even has the sentence out all the way Chloe is protesting, saying "I really didn't think it would matter" and "I honestly think you're over-reacting, Beca, okay?"

"You can't just disappear without telling me! Do – do you not have any idea how much that makes me worry?"

And Chloe doesn't say anything to that, because obviously she does.

"I told you, anyway," she says, sulking. "I mentioned it last week."

"You said you were maybe going. I wasn't even sure when you'd meant."

"Well Christ, Beca, do I have to tattoo it to my forehead? I said I was going, and I can hardly see how it's my fault you can't bother to be concerned with my job. I mean of course they're not as interesting as your record label and club appearances, but surely-"

"That's bullshit, Chloe, that's not true and it's not fair and you know it." And Beca doesn't yell, she knows that she'll miss her mark entirely if she raises her voice, lose the dangerous way she can tip the scales by being calculating and recalcitrant, all those things Chloe hates when more than anything she just wants to make Beca scream.

"Well I'm sorry you feel that way," Chloe tells her, sounding as unapologetic as someone can, her thumb already poised to end the call.

* * *

And Chloe is an ass, anyway, Beca tells herself. So who cares if she never comes home? That's what she tells herself while she orders in dinner, and she keeps telling herself over and over so she doesn't forget.

* * *

But when Chloe is still gone that night, Beca feels something gnawing in her stomach anyway, and she waits until it's late to send Chloe another text – _please come home, I need you._

And Chloe says _I know, okay, I'm coming back soon. You need me. I know. x x._

Even while Beca feels relief, she sees exactly how cruel Chloe is being.

Beca sleeps through it when Chloe lets herself into the apartment, just like she slept through it when Chloe left the day before. She comes into bed and wraps herself around Beca's shoulder, and Beca doesn't say anything, but she sinks into Chloe's chest anyway, and for that moment it is okay.

She turns and rests her face in the angles between Chloe's neck and her collarbone, and feels herself try to crawl as close into Chloe as she can, to live under her skin and make her gasp and move just like that, with Beca's name a benediction whispered to no one, for nothing. She knows how to do this, how to pull Chloe's shirt over her head as fast as possible because she needs to be pressed against her skin right now. She will run her hands along Chloe's back, and the line under her hipbone, the seam of her thigh, and the intimacy of Chloe's geometry and her cautious touch mirrored back onto Beca's skin, the way Chloe's eyes will clench shut when she says Beca's name – it will make Beca sick, just a little bit.

* * *

One day they will press too hard and something will break permanently and they will not be able to fix it, not that time, but that doesn't change the push and pull, the horrible betrayal of how much you love someone and the terrible things you can do to them because of it.

Because no matter what, no one can say Beca doesn't love Chloe. She is consumed with love for Chloe, and she suspects that's exactly why she wants to tear her apart sometimes.

But sometimes Chloe will press Beca's hair back off her forehead, and rest her cheek there for a minute, and forget what she was upset about, forget what she's ever been upset about. And sometimes Beca will draw her thumb down the back of Chloe's knuckles, and it's more of an apology than anything they've ever said to each other. And that's enough to pretend, enough to build upon, because when they're quiet like this, neither will have to admit how terrified they are.


End file.
